MS CLAKE IS DOING A PHD WITH LUKE KENNARD AT BIRMINGHAM UNIVERSITY, ON THE FEMINIST ABSURD IN AMERICAN AND BRITISH POETRY JENNA CLAKE I...

Saturday, 17 December 2011

Montreal Poetry Prize a bit of a dud

Well, the ho-hum news is in. After apparently scouring the globe for the 50 best poems of the year, and with a super star list of judges, here is the shortlist. There are not really many well-known or established Irish or British poets here, and, frankly, few if any major Canadian or American poets either. Comparing this list to the Best American, Canadian or British anthologies, the level of quality and relevance is startling. The Montreal Poetry Prize needs to do a lot better in encouraging established, talented poets from across the English-speaking world to submit - and they probably need a better system of feeding poems to their main judge. It is a good idea, and hopefully, in time, will amount to something noteworthy.